A Sorta Fairytale
by RainingMonday
Summary: Maddison oneshot post season 5. Someone from Mark's past shows up, revealing an unexpected secret. He only knows of one person able to help with his newly disovered four year old. She lives many miles away, but this could be the key to reconciliation.


**.:*A Sorta Fairytale*:.**

**Buckle your seatbelts, people. This is a long one. The title comes from the song A Sorta Fairytale by Tori Amos.**

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When he hears the words, he knows that Irony, that subtle trickster, has just turned his life inside out. He had always considered it a viable possibility that because of his past indiscretions, a child of his could exist somewhere. But he had never expected a past lover to materialize in the busy halls of Seattle Grace, holding the hand of the girl that apparently is his daughter.

Spring has finally set upon Seattle, unthawing the land and causing a never-ceasing drizzle that makes him feel like he constantly has a head cold. Sure, yeah, the flowers are blooming in an explosion of color and everything has been painted a vivid emerald, as sort-of-newlyweds Meredith and Derek feel obligated to point out whenever he complains. Still, the wetness deteriorates his already sour mood, making newer and more complicated problems entirely unwelcome.

She walks in, her waterfall of dark brown hair swinging behind her, mocha skin glowing even under the cloud covered Seattle sky, and he gives her his customary once-over. His mind registers her familiarity, but Lexie walks by just then, and he is so busy avoiding her burning look that he doesn't dwell on it.

"Excuse me," she asks Bailey, who is standing a few feet away from her. "Does Dr. Mark Sloan work here?"

The sound of his name makes him look up and give her a second reassessment, and it is only then that he remembers. "Charlene?"

"Mark." She says his name like a curse. He hasn't seen her since Addison left New York, because part of him blamed her leaving him on the nurse he'd screwed in the hopes of dissipating the fear of his coming child. Sleeping with her had cost him Addison's trust and his child's life, and he'd spurned Charlene and she left soon after, not that he was sober enough to notice.

Charlene holds the hand of a small, doll-like girl, whose face is as perfect as an angel. She looks like her mother, with the same chocolate colored hair, wide eyes, and exotic features, but her skin is lighter, latte instead of mocha, and her eyes are a brilliant, crystal blue. "I need you to take her," Charlene says, holding out the tiny girl's hand. She seems to be in a hurry, she can't keep still and hops around like a caged grasshopper. "Her name is Marisol, but she likes to be called Marie. She's yours."

He can't help but notice the anomaly being presented. Addison, who always wanted children, who played for hours with Derek's nieces and nephews, aborted his child. Charlene, the ex-model, the easiest nurse at Mt. Sinai hospital, kept his child.

_She's yours._

Mark is about to demand some sort of proof, to protest that he cannot care for a kid, that he would be a terrible father, when she hands him the girl's backpack.

"I have … I have to go," Charlene chokes, hugging her daughter quickly and brushing her cheek with one manicured fingernail. "Be good for your Dad, okay?"

"Where are you going, Mommy?" the child asks, icicle eyes wide and innocent.

"I just have to leave for a little while," Charlene says softly, and it's then that he knows. She doesn't have to leave at all, but she doesn't want to get her daughter involved in the life that she now lives.

"Tell your pimp hello for me. Don't get too strung out," he snaps sarcastically, disgusted. Charlene had hovered at the edge of prostitution for a few years, doing whatever she could to support her shopping sprees and expensive lifestyle.

She doesn't answer, only walks away, drawing the looks of every male in the direct vicinity, including, to Mark's glee, Derek. While Derek is watching Charlene's perfectly toned ass, however, Meredith is looking at him, standing clueless beside the four year old girl.

"Mark?" she asks hesitantly, confused by the picture in front of her.

"What poor bastard trusted _you _with their kid?" Derek asks jokingly. Of course Derek finds it funny. Mark remembers Derek playing a trick on him, paying a boy ten dollars to call him 'Dad.' But this is painful and so surreal. He never wished to have a child with Charlene. He didn't even like her. He wanted to have a child with Addison.

But no matter what he might have previously wished, this little girl is his. Derek's smile fades as his silence continues, and he looks at the situation with new eyes. "She's yours?" he asks. Meredith stares, her eyebrows raised. The child hasn't moved, she only stares at the spot her mother recently vacated. His heart sinks. _I can't do this._

Meredith and Derek's faces turn sympathetic, and he realizes that he said the words out loud. Derek is as frozen as he is, just as ill-equipped to deal with this turn of events. Meredith, however, approaches the child and asks, "What's your name, sweetie?"

"Marie," the girl answers shyly, swinging the small pink backpack back and forth. She is wearing a forest green dress, the edges embroidered intricately, and a small brown crocheted sweater. There are circles under her eyes, Charlene must have taken a red-eye from New York to get to Seattle at the time she did.

"I'm Meredith," Meredith says, and Marisol reaches for her hand. "She looks tired, Mark. I'm sure the Chief will give you the day off, considering." Mark scans his brain, trying to remember if he has any surgeries scheduled, but none come to him. He is supposed to operate on O'Malley, who survived the surgery but is now catatonic, but he knows that the young resident wouldn't survive the surgery for a few more weeks.

"Okay," he says. He is glad to let anyone else take the reigns; tell him what to do, because although he had professed a desire, before, to raise a child with Addison, the truth is he has no idea how. He allows Meredith to lead the way to her car. He was supposed to move into his new house, bought, admittedly, on a whim, in two days.

Derek drives, Meredith sits beside him, and Mark lifts the tiny girl into the car. She sits next to him and leans on his shoulder, her lips open in a tiny, perfect 'o' as she yawns countless times. It is not until they arrive at Meredith's house, get Marisol inside the door and up the stairs, and lay out a bed of blankets and pillows that she presents a tangled web of difficulty.

"Is Mommy coming back soon?" she wants to know as she sits amidst the blankets.

"No," he says, figuring it is best just to be honest. "Sorry." His voice sounds blunt, too gruff, but hey, he wasn't built for this. Large hands and fingers aren't meant for tying tiny tennis shoes; a chest of hard muscle isn't comfortable to cuddle up to. There is nothing remotely reassuring about Mark Sloan.

"But," Marisol pouts, her eyes tearing up. "She said she would be back soon. She promised."

Tears have always made him feel helpless, but he remembers cradling Addison when Derek would leave her home alone, and wiping her face gently with a tissue. Marie's tangle of limbs are smaller and more delicate than Addison's, but he discovers, as he tucks her against his chest, that he can hold her just the same. "You're going to stay with me for a while, Marie," he says.

"I can't stay with you. You're a stranger," she protests, for all that her tears are soaking through his indigo scrub top.

"How about I introduce myself then?" he says, following an instinct stemming from some mysterious place inside him. "Hi Marie. I'm your Dad."

"Hi Daddy. I'm Marie," she replies, beaming through her tears. "Are you sure you're my dad? Because I never met you before."

The truth is, he isn't sure. Charlene could have lied to make him take the child. But there is just no escaping the fact that their eyes are precisely the same shade, nor that he is present in her sculpted cheeks or tiny, pointed chin. "I'm sure," he says. "Now aren't you tired? Why don't you go to sleep?"

Marisol buries her face in a pillow obediently, and within five minutes, she is snoring softly, her tiny chest rising and falling. He hadn't thought to put her in pajamas, but he hasn't the heart to wake her up. Marisol and Mark. Is it a coincidence?

His feet carry him down the chairs, to where a congregation has gathered. Meredith and Cristina lean against the counter, drinking, to his surprise, wine instead of tequila. Owen and Derek are watching some sports game on TV (a game he would have been interested in mere hours ago), Izzie, her hair growing back in a halo of blonde fluff, is baking, Alex by her side, and Lexie stands awkwardly by the door. They all gawk as he walks in the room, like he's a freakshow they paid good money for.

"Here's her stuff," Meredith says to break the silence, and he is infinitely grateful to her as he accepts the backpack. "She's really cute, you know." It's probably supposed to be a compliment, but his tongue sticks in his throat, rendering speech impossible.

"Did she go to bed okay?" Derek asks. There is actual concern present in his voice, and he realizes that despite their staring, they are all here in support of him.

"I hope she likes chocolate," Izzie says as she pours thick brown batter into a pan. "Because this is going to be a huge cake. What kind of frosting do you think she wants? I could make pink."

"Don't forget to check on her," Owen says. "You don't want her to be scared when she wakes up."

"Right," he says, lingering by the staircase. They all go back to their activities, albeit conspicuously, except for Lexie. She is still wearing a jacket which he knows to mean she must not be staying. "So," he says when she stands in front of him, tucking her short brown pigtails back.

"So," she says, seeming reluctant to go on. "I know we were on a weird break thing or whatever. I don't know. But I can't do this, Mark," Lexie says. "Moving in, maybe, but I'm twenty-four, and I've got my whole life ahead of me. I can't – this isn't how I planned it."

"You think this is how I planned it?" he responds vaguely. Lexie is an isle of calm in the sea of hurt that is his life, because with her things were simple. No pain, no thought, no feelings so intense they burned to cut him deeply. A part of him is reluctant to lose it, but another part acknowledges that this is inevitable. Fifteen years is just too much to overcome, at least where they are concerned. He refuses to wait forever.

Lexie shuts the door, giving him a sad, sympathetic look. He's already sick of the sympathy. He longs for the only person who wouldn't be sympathetic, who would challenge him to accept life as it is. But she lives hundreds of miles in away in a world of sunshine and beaches, where the dark clouds of Seattle cannot encroach.

Mark is just convincing himself that maybe fatherhood isn't quite so bad when Marisol appears at the top of the stairs, a soft yellow blanket clutched in one fist. "Mommy?" she calls, and as she steps forward everything freezes. Because the blanket is overlong and tangles with her legs, sending her sprawling. There's no soft carpet in front of her, only empty air, and fatherhood descends on him as he watches his daughter fall down the stairs.

She only makes it halfway, and there is a pause before the screaming starts. "Shit," he moans. "Shit, shit, shit." Of course this would happen on his first day with her. Of course. Marisol's face is bright crimson, and her body shakes with sobs. Mark lifts her carefully, wary of broken bones, but she appears fine, except for her left arm which she clutches to her chest.

Meredith and Izzie arrive a second later and help him get Marie situated with ice on her arm. It swells quickly, though, and she does not stop crying and will not let them touch it. Owen peers at it though her protective cradle. "It looks broken," he observes.

_Addison was right_, he thinks as he drives Marie to the ER. _I am a terrible father. _On his first night with his daughter, she broke her arm. "Mommy!" the child yells from the back. "I want Mommy," she cries as he lifts her into his arms and runs into the ER. "I don't want you!"

She struggles in his arms but he gets her through the doors and onto gurney. There she is silent, staring at the bloody figures surrounding her, azure eyes wide. "Page Dr. Torres," he snaps at a nearby intern. "I don't care what she's doing, get her down here now."

Callie comes flying in, midnight hair array, with Arizona at her heels. "What happened?" she demands, and he only gestures at the child sitting on the bed. He's had her for less than twenty four hours and she's already in the hospital.

When he fails to answer, Callie soothes the girl and orders an x-ray, her hand smoothing the tangled chestnut waves. As he waits outside while Marisol's arm is x-rayed, he opens his phone and dials the number he swore he would never call again.

She answers on the fourth ring. "Hello?" He can hear the tears in her voice, and wonders why she's crying. Maybe it's the crashing waves he can hear in the background, the pull of the ocean tides, or maybe he's imagining it. But if she's crying, he figures she's probably alone. He was the only person she ever cried in front of.

"Addison," he says, and then pauses. Mark is sure she knows how to take care of children, sure she will love Marie. But this is tearing open wounds he thought were healed, picking scabs for the sake of bleeding. This is going to hurt, but he says it anyway, "I need your help."

There's a pause and he's worried she's going to say she can't, or she's busy, or ask why he's calling her of all people. But she doesn't. The silence bespeaks of all the times _she _called _him_, the way he dropped everything, surgeries, dates, his life, just to be with her. Perhaps she's remembering the time she called him after Derek cheated on her, and he was there within hours, and how she jumped him the second she opened the door and they fell into the shower in a whirl of thoughtless passion.

"Okay," she whispers, and then the line disconnects. Marisol appears a moment later in Callie's arms, her crying ceased by a bright pink cast.

"Daddy?" she asks softly, contrite, and he accepts her from Callie.

"She's yours?" Callie asks, although she already knows the answer, and he nods. She senses that he doesn't want to talk about it so does not say more, but he catches her examining Marie's face carefully.

Addison turns up a little over four hours later, and he knows she must have flown stand-by to get here. Which means no first class. How desperate had he sounded, exactly?

She arrives in a fitted dress with no more than a small bag, and stands in the entrance, looking for him. She looks flawless, as usual, indescribably so, but he wonders, by the tense set of her shoulders, who has broken her this time. Addison looks like a star that has lost its sky, and while she shines, illuminated, in his eyes, there is no mistaking her forsakenness. Her eyes, a fey mix of blue and green, seek him out over skin stretched too tightly over sharp cheekbones.

_Addison. _He will always, always love her. He has desired to throw it out, and others have desired to steal it, but he has loved her since the instant he first saw her.

Addison finally spots him, and he approaches slowly, like she is a wild animal that will run if startled. And to tell the truth, he is not entirely sure she wouldn't. But although she knows what must have occurred the moment she sees Marisol in his arms, she doesn't leave. Her presence sets his heart thrumming, too fast and too strong, and it is wonderful and painful all at the same time. "She looks like you," are her only words when they stand nearly toe to toe in the entrance of the hospital.

"I don't know what to do," he mutters, staring at his shoes, slightly resentful that he has to say this to _her _of all people. "You were right."

"About what?" she asks, her brow creasing in confusion. She steps forward slowly and takes Marisol from his arms, and he discovers that they fit together. Maybe she is here out of pity, maybe because deep inside of her, a part calls for him, singing desperate strains in the blackest midnight.

"About me being a terrible father," he replies, and this time he is able to meet her eyes, because she said it, after all. How can he both love her and hate her? And why does the love swallow up the hate, making him wish he could lean forward and join their lips once again?

"You're not going to be a terrible father," she says softly, eyes burning with a thousand apologies. Her hand rests on his arm, and for a second their hearts beat together, the blood pulsing through them at exactly the same rate, and then she blushes and steps back.

He cannot help the grin that explodes across his face, and she smiles serenely back, reminding him of nights spend watching movies in the brownstone and laughing at the stupidest things that to them, were funny. Derek never really understood, when he arrived home, but they did.

Neither of them know what to do, so Mark ends up driving them out to the house he bought, although it is not officially his until the next day. There is a sprawling garden, and in the semi-darkness it looks to be inhabited by fairies. It is all tall columns and white wood, and while it is not huge, it has a kind of beauty unachievable by size alone. The owner is still there, but after a brief conversation he agrees to let Mark have the house a night early, only pausing to warn him of the few pieces of relatively new but unwanted furniture left inside. He stands by as Mark pulls up, staring at Addison and Marisol in a way that makes Mark is sure he thinks they are his wife and child.

Never before in his life have things fallen into place so easily, so effortlessly, like dominoes falling one after another. He has never owned a house, only an apartment, but he finds he rather likes thinking of it as his. Addison and Marisol trail in after him, and the rest of the evening is a blur of exhaustion and near-strangers getting to know each other. Marisol learns Addison's name, Addison learns, by his whispers while Marie is occupied, how she came to be with him, and he learns that life in LA is made up of seducing heart surgeons who are married and coworkers who are happily having babies. In essence, sucky.

When he wakes up, he discovers that Addison and Marisol claimed the couch sometime in the night. Addison is curled up on her side, heels discarded on the beige carpet, Marisol by her side. It intones so deeply the life he wanted but could never grasp that it feels like someone has stolen his insides and replaced them with stones. How long before Addison leaves him again?

Mark makes breakfast because somewhere along the way, he'd learned to cook for the women who stayed over and because Addison sucks at it, although she always pretended to be all domesticated for Derek and more importantly, his mother. He has no idea what he and Addie are doing, she is probably as lost as she is, but as long as Marie has an echo, an illusion of a home, perhaps they are succeeding. There is never, he remembers, an agreement that Addison will stay. She just does.

The omelets are sizzling, filling the house with a comforting aroma, when the doorbell rings and he opens it to find Lexie. She is slightly breathless, and, to his amusement, wearing a large amount of makeup. There is no draw to her anymore, not when Addison lies merely feet from him, sleeping beside his daughter. "I just," Lexie pants, startling him slightly, "wanted to say I'm sorry."

"What?" he asks.

"I'm sorry," she repeats. "I shouldn't have just left like that, I should have -"

"It doesn't matter," he interrupts, but she plows on, oblivious.

"It does -"

"Little Grey -"

And then she spots Addison, lying on his white sofa like Aphrodite's long-lost sister. How Addison and Marisol are so comfortable together instantly he cannot fathom, but Addison's hand rests on Marisol's back and Marisol's pink casted left arm is covered in a curtain of red hair. Marisol was never truly Charlene's, which is why she gave her up with ease.

Lexie stares, flat brown eyes wide, as if she has finally got a clue of her own naivety. "It's always been her, hasn't it?" she asks, and Mark has no answer because is the stark truth of that statement steals the oxygen strait out of his lungs. Lexie nods, like she is answering her own question, which was rhetorical anyway. Then she's gone. He barely notices, because Marisol is blinking and rubbing her eyes.

"Um, hey," he says in response to her bright smile. "You like omelets?"

Apparently she did, very much so, because she ate two and a half by herself, and he polished off another three. Addison did not even finish one, which only added to his disquiet. In order to distract himself, he thinks aloud. "I have to talk to the Chief," he says.

"Oh, well, I can stay here with her if you want," Addison offers, clearing their dishes. When he leaves for the hospital, Marisol is dressed in a flowing purple shirt, miniature white shorts, and sandals with too many buckles. He tries to summon up some sense of fatherhood as he drives. Nothing.

A week passes in a similar fashion, and the phone rings off the hook. Neither of them answer it for fear of breaking the spell that has been woven. Naomi leaves furious messages, expounding about responsibility, and they both pretend they're deaf. Nobody at Seattle Grace comments about Addison's reappearance. They hear nothing from Charlene, and Marisol stops asking for her.

"Why did you come?" he demands to know as they sit on the porch, watching Marisol jump around in a fairy costume.

"You needed me," she murmurs. "And I … I needed you too." She refuses to meet his eyes as she says this, staring instead at a moth fascinated by the brilliant yellow porch light. He wonders which one of them is that moth.

"So what now?" he asks.

"I don't know," she says. When it comes to each other, they never do.

"Marisol loves you," he says, almost inaudibly, but she turns away. "I love you too," he whispers, as soft as the downy leaves blowing in the trees, but the slam of the back door is the only response he gets.

Two weeks pass. Marisol is quiet but slowly blooming, enjoying a life that he realizes Charlene never gave her. He can picture the small girl left in an apartment in New York for hours on end, and shudders. Lexie glares at Addison at work, Addison ignores her. Meredith and Derek are as disgustingly sugary-sweet as ever. Addison tells Naomi she needs an extended leave of absence. He still has no idea what they're doing.

Four weeks.

And they are living the life they might have had. Mark drops Marie off at kindergarten every morning, and then he and Addison get coffee and head to Seattle Grace. They meet between surgeries, and Marie ensuring that they always have something to talk about. She keeps them on the same plane, where they have never been able to stay for extended periods of time before her. Addison leaves work early to pick the four year old up, and he arrives at his house an hour later to find Addison valiantly attempting to make dinner and Marie outside waiting for him on the lawn.

The first time they kiss, he simply pecks her on the cheek when he gets home from work. It is so natural he doesn't even think of doing it until his lips touch her skin. And she turns and captures his lips as easily as if they do it everyday, and she tastes like cinnamon sugar and musk and peaches in the summertime. They don't speak of it afterwards.

Addison goes on a furniture shopping spree, and soon their house is filled with very expensive furnishings and fixings. Somehow, though, the style Addison chooses is comforting as well as stylish. He remembers the time Derek did not come home for a full five days, and Addison got caught up in his painting project. Before he knew it, his apartment was done in a shade he'd never heard of.

Neither one of them speak of the underlying pain. He doesn't ask when she's leaving, she doesn't ask if he wants her to.

The first time Marisol calls Addison 'Mommy', they are sitting on the couch, waiting for the four year old to tell them what game they're to play. She thinks, tapping her tiny chin and pacing back and forth before finally saying, "Let's play house. "Daddy, you're going to be the daddy. And Addie, you be the mommy. I'll be the baby."

They exchange glances, eyes wide, but are not even allowed a second to adjust before Marisol continues. "Daddy, you have to kiss Mommy," she says, and they lean forward obediently. Who is this four year old who dictates their lives, brings them together when no one else could? His lips, feverish and dry, brush up against her rose petal ones for one too-short instant.

They reach the twelve week mark, the twelve best weeks of his life. Addison has a shiny, official new contract with Seattle Grace and an official promise from Naomi that she will never speak to her again to go with it. But her friend Violet calls to tell her the baby's name is Dominic, and that Pete sends his greetings. Marisol gets her cast off, giggling as the tiny saw cuts the Plexiglas. George's surgery is a success, Mark notes proudly, and even Addison compliments his handiwork. Izzie and Alex babysit Marisol a few times, and Izzie, cancer seemingly gone for good, decides she wants to have a baby. Alex tries fruitlessly to convince her otherwise.

It is on one of these very nights that they first fall into bed together (again). It starts out as a drink on the veranda, listening to the subtle song of summer, but soon there are too heated, desperate bodies pressed up against each other. The summer heat consumes them, and he carries her to his white bedroom. There is no way to taste enough of her skin or be near enough to her, although her hands clutch him frantically. In what feels like no time he is pressing kisses to her bare chest and feeling a far off gratitude that Marisol is not home, because Addison is anything but quiet.

Their lips battle passionately for several minutes, relearning a dance, and then he can't stand it any longer as combustion hovers on the horizon. He rolls her over, joining two bodies and two souls, and they make love so sweetly that strawberries taste bitter.

The next morning his bed is cold and she is gone. He dresses in a flurry of panic, unable to think or function, and only pauses to accept Marisol from a puzzled Izzie. He pulls pink rubber boots onto her feet while she chatters and bundles her into his car. He can't do more than hope he isn't too late while Marie giggles, "I'm still in my jammies, Daddy!"

"I need a ticket!" he snaps in the general direction of the nearest counter as they enter Sea-Tac.

"Where would you like to –."

"I don't care, just give me any ticket," he snaps. People stare as he sprints through the airport, Marisol asks, "Why are we going so fast, Daddy? Are we being cheetahs?" The slow security measures nearly undo him. He scans a nearby list of departures, looking for a flight from Addison's favorite airline to LAX, and resumes running.

The flight is just beginning to board, and those in line with boarding passes ready study his panting, sweaty demeanor as he looks for Addison. She is easy to spot, nervous and surrounded by a cloud of guilt and regret. She exudes fragility and determination at the same time. She has broken his heart all over again, but this time he is taking a chance, hoping, wishing, praying, that this time she'll stay.

"Addison," he gasps, and those around them turn around to watch the show. He's never been one for cheesy airport declarations of love, but he's never been one for kids or monogamy either, until Addie and Marie. "Where are you going?"

"We can't keep playing house, Mark," she tells him, her voice burdened with an infinite sadness. "It's a sorta fairytale, but it has to end sometime."

"Why?" he asks. "Why does it always have to end? I love you, Addie. Always have, always will. And I know you love me too. You might pretend like you don't, but you do. And you can pretend like you don't need me and Marie, but that's not true either. We could be happy." Her mouth falls open, but otherwise she seems frozen.

"Come on, Red!" a man shouts. "Give him a chance." Others join in, cheering them on, and he'd pause and enjoy the moment if only he knew what reply Addison would give. They teeter on the brink of disaster.

He can see the want and desire battling with common sense inside her, and when she gives in and kisses him, the people in the airport applaud. Marie grins, although she really doesn't know what's going on, and Mark knows this is the twelfth labor. They survived, Herculean effort though it was. It is all downhill from there.

That isn't to say it is perfect, though. The first time they fight, about something stupid and petty blown way out of proportion, he leaves, but he doesn't get further than the front porch. He spends the night out there, and Addison hits his head with the door when she opens it the next morning to get the mail. Nothing is easy or simple between them, and they are them. They alternately blow up and make love, anger and passion engaged in a meticulous dance.

One thing is clear, though: Marisol is their miracle.

The time passes, rushing by in great dollops of bliss, and just three short weeks after Marisol's fifth birthday, celebrated with a delicately frosted white and pink cake, Charlene shows up. Mark almost doesn't recognize her. Her hair is bleach blonde, her skin sallow, her eyes sunk deep into her skull. It looks like she has had a nose job also, and Mark notes with pride that he could have done a much better job. He has no idea where she's been, but he doesn't want to know, either.

She doesn't greet him, only asks, "Where is my daughter?"

Addison appears at that moment, Marisol's hand clutched tightly in hers. Not a word comes from between her lips, but what his daughter says changes the course of their lives forever. He expected her to fly into her mothers arms, but all she says is, "Daddy? Who is that?"

The pain on Charlene's face makes even his heart cringe in pity. "Baby, it's me," Charlene says. "It's Mommy."

Marisol stares back, affronted and alarmed, and squeezed Addison's hand tighter. "You're not my Mommy," she claims, and for all intents and purposes, it is true. Charlene leaves, and two weeks later, custody papers arrive in the mail.

He is unsure when his sorta fairytale morphed into an actual one. Maybe it was when Addison put her house up for sale in LA and Naomi screamed at her for hours on the phone, nearly reducing her to tears. A cup of juju, for all of them, cleared that one up. Maybe it was when they watched Meredith and Derek get officially married, and Addison said that someday she would like to walk down the isle again. Maybe it was when he learned his son would arrive in six short months, or when Addison decided, her hands on her hugely pregnant belly, that his name had to sound like hers, since Marie sounded so much like Mark … and they eventually settled on Aiden.

It has taken flight for sure, however, when two children flit through the grass chasing fireflies like pixies, one with hair dark as chocolate, the other's a bright vermilion, and Addison takes his hand.

This time, when he whispers, "I love you," she whispers it back.

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**Wow, my one-shots are always disgustingly long. You almost need a bathroom break, lol. Anyway if you read all that, I would be eternally grateful for some feedback.**

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